Topic: Robert Adams is having a bit of a moment

[Jeff Warden]

Hi all,

I just received the new Robert Adams book after listening to him on the Modern Art Notes podcast. If you haven't checked the podcast out yet I'm happy to recommend it; Tyler Green is knowledgeable and a good interviewer, and Adams is erudite and speaks off the cuff as if reading from a well edited script.  Green first interviewed Adams in 2012 and it was an outstanding exchange of ideas, on the occasion of his retrospective titled The Place We Live at the Yale University Art Gallery.  I walked that show and it was superb, showing his depth as a photographer, darkroom master and social activist.

If you want to listen to the most recent interview it's here:  https://manpodcast.com/portfolio/no-227-robert-adams/

One of his comments from the interview:
"I feel quite ill at ease with what I see going on in the art world around me. Not much in Art Forum lifts the spirit for me. Great figures like Jasper Johns for example, and others that have followed in his steps seem to me to have asked too little of themselves in terms of substance and scope - people like that are certainly not embarrassing in the same way that Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst are, but the art world as it's currently before us seems to me mostly the other side of capitalism as religion (namely a mixture of presumption and vulgarity and cruelty and vacuity.) Art as a long term thing is very important to me but I'm not convinced that it's always a profitable area of focus, and right now seems to be an era that's struggling."

No arguments here.

The book and accompanying show in San Francisco is good (with some nice shots of his impossibly tidy darkroom) but not a must have. I'm a completist when it comes to Adams so I had no choice in the matter.  :-)  He has an unconventional darkroom style that I enjoy studying.  (Sometimes he dodges shadow areas almost to white and it somehow works.)


I also got the new issue of the New York Review of Books yesterday and there is an in-depth article about the post war proliferation of thirteen million + inexpensive tract homes that made America's new suburbs. These are exactly the type of construction that Adams condemns with his photography and voice as soulless and inhumane, so the NYRB gets bonus points from me for using one of Adams' best images to start the article. Kudos.

Cheers,

Jeff

[jharr]

Yeah, that was a good interview. He seems very natural and a genuinely nice person. I was unfamiliar with his work, but will now make an effort to be more aware of it. What I saw from this particular collection was very hopeful for someone like me who does not do exotic travel photography or dramatic portraiture. His beautiful yet simple 'shots' around his home are inspiring. Thanks for sharing the link. That was an hour well spent.

[Jeff Warden]

Cool, I'm glad you enjoyed it.  Adams has written well about photography and beauty.  Two slim books of essays I could recommend would be Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, and the excellent Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values.

[Maljac]

Hi, I really enjoyed it too. First saw his work in The Jeu de Paume. Thanks for your link.
There is a film on him that accompanied the exhibition.

http://www.jeudepaume.org/index.php?page=article&idArt=2046

[astrobeck]

Finally had an hour uninterrupted to give this a listen and I'll be going back to it in the future.
Nice interview and really gives insight to his work.

It's a pleasant hour that feels like Adams is in the room with you just talking about his photography and house.

Thanks for the link!

Becky